Saving People, Hunting Things
by Eridium Blight
Summary: Mary and John Winchester's marriage in on the rocks, and they split: three-year-old Dean going with his dad and baby Sam staying with his Mom. What John thought was a weekend away becomes a permanent search for Mary's killer and whoever has Sammy when the house mysteriously burns down while the boys are away. No OC, no slash.
1. Chapter 1

***I do not own Supernatural* **

John and Mary Winchester did not have the fairytale marriage that John wanted everyone to believe they did. What started out as a loving relationship built on trust, communication, and a deal with a yellow-eyed demon ended in over-the-phone fights and sleepless nights alone. Mary couldn't handle the lifestyle that John had chosen to live anymore.

"It's been four days, John, when are you coming home?" Mary half-sobbed into the phone. John was out on another "business trip" again, though Mary was pretty sure he was dividing legs, not numbers. Mary wasn't sure what kind of mechanic needed to travel as much as John did and she had let it go for several years. But now they had two sons and John needed to be home more often with his boys. "Mary, please, you know that I'm out here on business." John replied, sounded distracted. "I don't give a shit, John. Come home, now." Mary slammed the phone down on its cradle, ending the call. She sighed and leaned against the counter, running her fingers through her long blonde hair. Tears began to form in her eyes. The perfect life she had imagined for herself with the man of her dreams was falling apart and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Mary was ripped from her thoughts by a familiar voice: "Mom, you okay?"

"Dean, yeah, I'm fine sweetheart." Mary straightened her blouse and smoothed her hair down. She couldn't cry now, not in front of her son. "Do you want some dinner?" Mary smiled as Dean nodded, he was always hungry. "I'll go get your brother then I'll whip something up." Mary walked through the kitchen into the living room and up the stairs to Sam's nursery. Her little boy was still napping, cuddled up in a little blue blanket. She reached into the crib and picked Sam up and carried him downstairs. "Dean, can you hold your little brother please?" Dean sat down in one of the high backed wooden chairs in the kitchen and Mary placed Sam carefully in his arms. Even at three years old, Dean was an expert at holding his baby brother. Mary made dinner for her and Dean and fed Sam with a bottle. The rest of the evening went without much excitement, and she put the boys to bed.

Around 3:00am, Mary was jolted awake by a sound coming from the living room. She jumped up out of bed and grabbed a shotgun that was next to the bed, just in case. She crept down the stairs and was ready to fire when she saw what caused the sound and sighed. "John Winchester, where the hell have you been?!" Mary whisper-screamed into the darkness. Even from the stairs she could smell the booze on his breath. "M-Mary. I'm fine." John slurred. Mary rested her head on the banister and closed her eyes. "John, that's it. I'm sick and tired of all of this. The long time apart, the drinking, Dean asking where his daddy is! I want you out, tomorrow." Mary stomped back up the stairs, careful to be loud enough to make her point but quiet enough to not wake the boys. She was done with all of this. She was done with John Winchester.

"You can't do this to me, Mary." John boomed through the house. The night on the couch had cleared up his drunkenness, but not his anger. These were his damn boys and he was going to keep them! "Mary, we can work something out – " "John, I'm done working things out. I'm just done. Please, just get out." She wasn't yelling or even crying, just sitting on the couch like she was talking to the neighbor about her garden. She was just ready for John to leave and get on with her life. "Take your stuff, and get out." Mary stated, not looking him in the eyes but instead looking at the ground. "Fine, if that's what will make you happy." John sighed and went upstairs to pack his belongings. "Mommy, what's going on?" Dean came down the stairs from his bedroom. "Oh, Dean, honey." Mary motioned for him to come sit down on the couch. This was going to be a lot harder than she thought. "Your dad is going to leave for a while." "I wanna go with him!" Dean exclaimed before Mary could get another word out. "I'll go pack." And with that Dean ran up the stairs to pack his little thrift store suitcase. "Dean, wait." Mary followed him up the stairs. She walked into Dean's room and found him stuffing his suitcase with clothes and action figures. "Honey, you can't go with your dad." "And why can't he?" John said from the doorway. "John, don't." Mary said through clenched teeth. "Please mom?" Dean said, holding his now full suitcase in one hand and his jacket in the other. "Sure you can, buddy. Come on, go get in the car." Dean ran down the stairs and Mary and John heard the front door slam followed by the trunk of the Impala. "Let him come with me, just for the weekend. Let me spend some time with my son. I'll bring him back on Monday, promise." John flashed his charming smile at Mary and she felt herself giving in. "Alright, fine. But just until Monday. And don't take him anywhere dangerous." Mary warned, but John was already halfway down the stairs.

"Dad, where are we going?" Dean kicked his feet in the front seat, his legs too little to touch the ground. John didn't have a car seat for him, and he was pretty sure they weren't really needed anyway. "We're gonna go get ourselves a hotel room, then we're gonna get some breakfast. You hungry buddy?" Dean nodded, and tried to fiddle with the radio stations. His arms weren't quite long enough to reach the knobs, and John chuckled. "It'll be great." John said, more to himself than to Dean. They pulled into the first motel they came to, a little hole in the wall place called the Green Door Inn, which was odd because the doors were not even remotely green. It looked like a pay-by-the-hour place where they don't ask for your name, let alone your ID. Just the kind of place John was used to. He drove up to the office door and went inside, leaving Dean in the front seat. John paid for a room for the night and went back to the Impala to grab their bags. "Come on Dean, let's go check out our room." Dean jumped out of the front seat and followed his dad, kicking the dirt in the parking lot as he walked. John slid his key into room 4 of the inn and turned the lock. The door creaked open and John and Dean walked in, placing their bags on each of the double beds. Even at a young age, Dean was the spitting image of his father.

Dean and John left and got some burgers then came back to the room for the night. There they watched television and talked, like any normal family would. The weekend which much in this pattern, burgers and television filling their time. Monday morning rolled around faster than John wanted to, but a deal was a deal, and Mary would be livid if he didn't bring Dean back on time. "It's time to go Dean, back to mom." They packed their bags and left in the Impala towards home.

The family home looked like anything but home now. The fire department was still there from the night before, but they were cleaning up. The house was charred badly, and John couldn't get out of the car fast enough. "Mary!" John screamed, racing towards the house. One of the firemen stopped him just short of the door and shook his head. "Sorry sir, you can't go in there. Too dangerous." "But my wife, she's in there. And my son." John panted, trying to get past the burly fireman. "There was no son found, but your wife…I'm sorry, she didn't make it." John dropped to the ground and sobbed into his hands. "Mary, no." Just then John heard the Impala car door squeak open and turned around. "Daddy, what's going on?" Dean questioned, suitcase in his hand and standing in front of the car. "Dean, get back in the car." John ordered. He couldn't let Dean see all of this, not at his young age. "We're going to spend some more time together, okay?" John smiled through his tears, trying to calm his son. Dean smiled and jumped back in the car, ready to spend the day with his biggest hero. John knew he had things he had to do now. Take care of his son, find Sammy, and figure out who did this to Mary.

**What will Dean and John do now? Where is baby Sammy? Please r&r, more coming soon! **

**~Eridium Blight **


	2. Chapter 2

***Still don't own Supernatural***

John had been driving for several hours now. Dean was asleep in the front seat, his head resting against the window. He looked so peaceful sleeping, and for a moment John smiled. Dean had no idea what had happened to Mary and Sam, and really neither did John. But he knew where to start. He kept driving along I-36 towards the only town that held family now: Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

It was close to 3:00am when John and Dean pulled into the salvage yard lot. They were greeted by the biggest man Dean thought he'd ever seen, holding a shotgun. "Bobby, relax. It's us." John said, familiar with how paranoid Bobby could be. It wasn't really surprising that he was still up, he was always up studying some lore or another. "John, what the heck are you doing here?" Bobby questioned, aiming his shotgun at the ground away from the boys. "Is there someplace we can go to talk?" John asked. Bobby nodded and they headed into the house with Dean right behind them. They walked into Bobby's living room…well, Dean wasn't sure it could be called a living room, since most living rooms he'd seen weren't covered in stacks of books and papers taller than him. Bobby sat down in the only chair that was really available, the one behind his old wooden desk. He didn't seem concerned with finding a seat for John or Dean, but he also didn't seem to care. John leaned against the front of the desk, pushing papers and books aside so they wouldn't topple off onto the floor. Dean busied himself by looking at stacks of papers and measuring his height against theirs.

"Bobby, something's happened. Mary…" John trailed off, his voice catching in his throat. "She's gone Bobby, Sam too. I don't know what happened. We were only gone for a couple of days…" _I should've been there, I could've protected her from whatever it was. _John was mentally scolding himself. "John, I've been meaning to call you. I found something, or should I say, I think something found you." Bobby flipped through the old, dusty book on the desk in front of him until he found the page he was looking for. He slid the book towards John and pointed at a sketch of a man's face. The writing told the story of the man, but John could only focus on one part of the picture: the eyes. They were bright yellow, almost captivating. He could swear that he'd seen them somewhere before, but where? John searched his brain for the answer, tuning Bobby out as he explained. "John, ya listening to me?" Bobby interrupted John's trip down memory lane. "Oh uh, sorry Bobby. What were you saying?"

Bobby sighed and took off his hat, rubbed head, and put it back on. John looked down, feeling guilty for ignoring Bobby when he was trying to help. "Azazel." Bobby tapped his finger against the face of the Yellow-Eyed man. "That's what they're calling him, anyway. Them demons say he's a nasty sonovabitch." John had definitely seen this man somewhere before, but he thought he'd remember a name like that, and he was drawing a blank. His thoughts were interrupted by a crashing sound on the other side of the living room. John looked over and saw a pile of books and papers all over the floor with Dean laying under them. "Dean, are you okay?" John called to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Dean said, pushing papers off of himself. "Sorry," Dean said, looking at Bobby, who shook his head. "Don't worry about it."

"We should probably go. I need to head back to the house, see what's left and figure out where to go from here. Come on, Dean." John started to head for the door , but Bobby stopped him. "John, don't go huntin' Azazel. He's not like the other demons out there. They say he can't be killed with anything. But I reached out to a few hunters I know and may have found a place you could start." Bobby disappeared into the rarely used kitchen of his home and came back with a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it and read from it to John. "Nashville, Tennessee. Locals been goin' missing and turning up dead, torn to bits. Sounds like something that needs lookin' into." Bobby folded the piece of paper and gave it to John. Below the information he had just been given was a name: Rufus Turner, and a phone number that John assumed belong to Rufus. "Call Rufus if you get into any trouble down there. He'll know what's going on." John nodded and slipped the paper into his pocket, mentally deciding that he'd call some guy named Rufus from Tennessee when Hell froze over. John walked out the front door, Dean trailing him. He climbed into the Impala and started it up, pretending for a short moment that he was headed home for dinner with Mary, not headed home to see if anything was left of her. Bobby nodded his goodbye from the doorway, and Dean waved as they left.

John never thought he'd used the word 'shambles' to describe his own home, but that seemed the only appropriate word now. They had pulled up nearly fifteen minutes ago, but John couldn't get himself to get out of the car. If he got out, it was all real. Dean was getting antsy, sitting in the car for so long. He had gotten bored of the belongings he had brought for the weekend stay and wanted to run around. John sighed and got out of the car, unable to avoid the truth any longer. Dean hopped out and ran around the yard. _Thank God he's not old enough to really understand what's going on, _John thought. He walked up to the front step and carefully stepped through what used to be his front door, but was now a pile of chopped wood on the porch. From the firemen, he assumed. Surprisingly, the house was relatively intact. Nothing on the lower floor seemed charred or ruined, which actually bothered John more than it should've. When he had pulled up to the house that night, the fire was so big, so hot, he assumed the whole house would be lost. What causes such a localized fire? He wondered.

John headed up the stairs and into Dean's bedroom. There was some charring on the wall that touched the master bedroom, but other than that, everything seemed fine. _The fire must have started in our bedroom_, John thought. He walked out of Dean's room and straight into his bedroom. John couldn't have been prepared for what he saw in there. A human-shaped scorch mark was on the ceiling, and a pool of blood on the bed. "Mary…" John whispered, turning his head away. He just couldn't look at this anymore, not right now. He left the bedroom, closing the door behind him, as if closing it would make it all go away. John walked down the hallway, passing Sam's room. Something caught his eye that made him go back and enter the nursery. The room was decorated simply, but with all the items any new baby would ever need. The crib was in the center of the room, and it was something on the crib that caught John's eye. The white lining was spotted with blood, and in the crib there was Sam's blanket, a stuffed bear, and the letter 'A' written in blood. "Azazel," John said, remembering what Bobby had told him.

John stormed out of the house carrying two duffel bags: one full of his stuff, one full of Dean's. He opened the trunk of the Impala and threw the bags in, hearing them hit the board that covered all the hunting materials he could ever dream of. John slammed the trunk lid and sat down in the driver's seat. He started the car and the engine roared to life. John cranked down the window and called to Dean, "Come on, Dean, we're going to Nashville."

**Thank you so much for reading! As always, please r&r.  
Authors Note: Thank you to Souless666 for reviewing and reminding me to get it in gear. **

**Eridium Blight **


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